Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Tired, cranky and running out of time

Still tired

On Monday night I went to the footy.My team won and it was heaps of fun but
Monday night footy is seriously the worst ever.It took so long for Sam to get home from work and drive to the city that
we missed the start of the game. We didn’t get home until after 11 and I was so
hyped up with adrenalin from the win that I couldn’t get to sleep until 2am. I
don’t mind if the crapness of Monday night games was shared amongst all of the
teams but it’s St Kilda home games every
year. Dear AFL, please stop the Monday games or share them around!

Writing this I have realised that it’s a lot easier to write
a negative review than it is to write a positive one. Is that human nature in
that it’s easier to criticise than commend or is it an indictment of my
character? Either way, it’s not a very good thing! I’m definitely going to try
to get more positive reviews out there now.

The crooked letter in the title is from the method used to
teach southern children how to spell ‘Mississippi’ – “M, I, crooked letter,
crooked letter, I, crooked letter, crooked letter, I, humpback, humpback, I”.
Honestly, I can’t see how that is any easier than just remembering how to spell
the word but I never used the rabbit-hole rhyme to help me tie my shoes, so I’m
clearly not a good candidate to judge the appropriateness of memory games for
children. Anyway, the title is very appropriate for this very southern book,
which is set in Chabot, Mississippi, a small town that has been decimated by
development and the passing of time. The story begins with the shooting of
Larry Ott, a lonely and alone man who drifts through life, not engaging with
anyone other than his chickens and his elderly mother, who has Alzheimer’s and
is living in a home. Ott is shunned by society due to his association with the
disappearance of a young girl 25 years ago and the recent disappearance of
another young woman has refocused the attention of the town on him. Silas ‘32’
Jones is the sole law enforcement officer of Chabot and, like Larry, he is
isolated, although not alone. Although he is not investigating Ott’s shooting,
a link is established between Ott and Silas that has effects that reverberate
through the rest of the story.

Crooked Letter,
Crooked Letter is told largely in flashbacks and the themes of isolation
and loneliness are explored as the deeper-than-expected connections between
Larry and Silas are brought to light. There is an excellent sense of place in
this novel and, as is expected in a book about the American south, race also
plays a role. When I read books that are very American and deal with very specific
American issues like Walmart culture and the racial tensions and in the south I
often feel like I am missing some of the references that an American reader
would get, but even with a fairly considerable cultural difference this book
was completely accessible. It’s classified as a thriller but it’s not
particularly thrilling – while it’s clear who the murderer is about two-thirds
of the way through the book, the book isn’t about the murder as much as it is
about blame and guilt and separation. I enjoyed this book very much and would
recommend it as literary fiction rather than a murder-mystery. Four out of five
stars.

A deadline

It’s Sam’s birthday in one week’s time and this is all I
have done on his socks.

I have a heel, a sole and a toe still to go and I don’t
think I’m going to make it!Less
blogging and more knitting certainly required to get this job done…